County joins relief effort

Leavenworth  Leavenworth County is involved in a disaster response effort that could send dozens of area public employees to areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Chuck Magaha, the county's director of emergency management, on Tuesday briefed representatives from public agencies throughout the county about the proposed "Unified Response and Recovery Team," a joint effort of government agencies from Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson and Douglas counties.

"What we've proposed to do is to put together a total package that when we go to a deployed area we will be self-supportive, self-sustained and self-efficient to provide the task that we've been assigned to do," Magaha said.

In other words, the plan is to avoid sending relief workers to the Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama and having them add to the problem they were sent to help alleviate.

"We're not going to have to depend on anybody to be able sustain ourselves," said Keith Yoder, the Kansas City metro area coordinator for the Homeland Security section of the Kansas Adjutant General's Office. "We're going to have fuel. We're going to have food. We're going to have a base camp. We're going to have communications."

Yoder said the four counties were involved in the effort for several key reasons: There are more assets in the area than anywhere else in the state; emergency preparedness officials in the four counties have worked together on numerous other issues; and mobilizations on prior efforts showed such a need existed.

The plan was being submitted Tuesday to Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state's adjutant general. If he accepts the plan, the services will be offered to emergency preparedness officials in states devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

"I want you all to know that there has not been any official request from the state of Kansas to be deployed at this time," Magaha said. "We have the request out there."

Because the needs in the ravaged areas are many, Magaha said Tuesday's meeting was partly meant to gauge support for the effort from public agencies throughout Leavenworth County.

"We're going to need to have appraisers. We're going to need to have health departments. We're going to need to have our emergency response agencies - fire, medical and law enforcement. We're going to need to have doctors and nurses. We're going to need to have GIS people. We're going to need to have policy-makers, public works folks :" he said.

Already, he said, the response team had commitments within the four counties for more than 140 public employees to be deployed, including 36 firefighters, 24 law enforcement officers, 17 nurses, a doctor and five emergency medical services units. The Kansas Speedway has been secured as a staging area for the effort.

To avoid sending people and equipment that aren't necessary, the initial foray by the response team into the hurricane-torn area will be reconnaissance in nature, Magaha said. Maj. Pat Kitchens of the Leavenworth Police Department will be on the command staff that will lead that mission.

"His first seven days are going to be busy, to get this ball rolling," Magaha said.

Others from the area already pegged for an initial assignment are Mike Spickelmier, the county's deputy director of public works, and Leon Stites, agricultural agent for the county Extension Office.

Another reason the four-county effort is drawing on equipment and staffing from a multitude of public agencies is to lessen the impact on any one jurisdiction.

To further lessen the impact, Magaha said, the response team was looking to rotate individuals and equipment during the deployment. Instead of the full 120-day deployment that is being sought by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, rotations would last 18 days at time - two days to travel to the disaster area, 14 days working and two days to travel back to Kansas.

Though the local agencies supplying the talent would be responsible for any costs upfront, ultimately FEMA would reimburse them for the tab, Magaha said.

Neither Yoder nor Magaha offered a cost estimate to put the team in place and deploy it.